Birdman took home the top prize on Sunday, winning best picture in an Academy Awards largely populated by smaller, independent films.

Tony Awards veteran Neil Patrick Harris gave the 87th Academy Awards a chipper tone that sought to celebrate Hollywood, while also slyly parodying it. “Tonight we honour Hollywood’s best and whitest — I mean brightest,” he began the night, alluding to the much-discussed lack of diversity in this year’s all-white acting nominees.

It was the first salvo in a night that often reverberated with heartfelt pleas for change.

“To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation,” said Arquette. “We have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once for all. And equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

Tears streamed down the face of David Oyelowo, who played the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and was famously left out of the best actor nominees, during the rousing performance of the song “Glory” from the film. Immediately afterward, Common and Legend accepted the best song Oscar with a speech that drew a standing ovation.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, a European caper released back around last year’s Academy Awards, appeared headed to becoming the night’s unlikely leader in trophies. It won for production design, score, costume design and makeup and styling.

The night’s first Oscar went to J.K. Simmons, a career character actor widely acclaimed for one of his biggest parts: a drill sergeant of a jazz instructor in the indie Whiplash. Alejandro G. Inarritu won the Oscar for best director for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).

Eddie Redmayne won the Oscar for best actor in a leading role for The Theory of Everything.

Julianne Moore won for best actress in a leading role for Still Alice.

“People with Alzheimer’s deserve to be seen,” she said during her acceptance speech.

Canadian director Chris Williams won the Oscar for best animated feature for Big Hero 6. The Kitchener, Ont.-bred animator collected the trophy along with co-director Don Hall and producer Roy Conli. It was the second Oscar nomination for Williams, who also earned a nod for his directorial debut on the 2008 film Bolt.

The black-and-white Polish film Ida took best foreign language film, marking the first such win for Poland despite a rich cinema history. Director Pawel Pawlikowski charmed the audience with a bemused acceptance speech that ran drastically over his allotted time.

Several of this year’s biggest box-office hit nominees — Clint Eastwood’s Iraq war drama American Sniper and Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar — had to settle for single wins in technical categories. Interstellar won for visual effects, while American Sniper — far and away the most widely seen of the best-picture nominee — took the best sound editing award.

The Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, in which Laura Poitras captured Snowden in the midst of leaking National Security Agency documents, won best documentary.

On Oscar night, in addition to up-to-the-minute updates on tonight’s winners, losers and tearful speeches, illustrators Kagan McLeod and Sarah Lazarovic will be sketching the highlights from tonight’s Oscars red carpet and ceremony, just like they did for the Golden Globes. Read an archive of our coverage below.